General: Zarqawi 'Bloopers' Tape Found

Coalition Shows Zarqawi Outtakes During Press Event By Jim Garamone American Forces Press Service BAGHDAD, May 4, 2006 – Coalition officials here today showed the "outtakes" of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's latest anti-coalition screed, and it became quickly apparent why they ended on the cutting-room floor, so to speak. In one, Zarqawi -- the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq -- has trouble trying to operate an automatic weapon. An associate has to show him how to do it. Later in the same shot, an associate takes the weapon from Zarqawi by the barrel and burns his hand. In another, the feared terrorist is shown in a black uniform and bright blue "tenny pumps." Coalition troops found the tape during a raid on a hideout for foreign fighters. "He is far from being a capable military leader," coalition spokesman Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said during a news conference today. Zarqawi has the most to lose as Iraq forms its national unity government, the general said. Al Qaeda leaders understand that democracy in Iraq means failure for the extremist organization. Zarqawi's al Qaeda mission is to destabilize any government in Iraq, to drive the coalition from the country, and to impose an extremist government and expand it across the region. Lynch said the coalition has made good progress against foiling suicide bombings, the most deadly attacks in Iraq. "The suicide attacks are where the innocent men, women and children of Iraq are being killed or severely wounded," the general said. About 90 percent of those launching suicide attacks are foreigners recruited and outfitted by Zarqawi. "We have planned and launched operations over the past couple of weeks to deny him that capability," Lynch said. Over the past year, the coalition has cut the number of suicide attacks Zarqawi can launch. First, operations in the Euphrates River Valley disrupted the flow of foreign extremists from Syria, and now intelligence has allowed coalition forces to kill or capture a significant number of foreign fighters. A year ago, Lynch said, there were on average 75 suicide attacks per month. Today there are less than 25 per month. Lynch said coalition officials have targeted suicide bombers. "Since April 8, coalition forces have killed 31 foreign fighters," he said. "These are people that Zarqawi brought into Iraq to be suicide bombers who were killed before they could launch their attacks." Suicide bombers most often come from Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Jordan. Most come into Iraq over the Syrian border. Lynch said that once captured, suicide attackers have often given coalition officials "actionable intelligence."

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Documenting Illegal Aliens is Big Business Across the Nation as Well as Close to Home

Help wanted: International high-technology printing company has expanded in to the United States nationwide with franchises in nearly every major city in the United States. This family-owned and operated business estimates its sales at over $1 billion a year. Applicants for sales positions must speak fluent Spanish and submit to a criminal background check.

Don't print your resume just yet, because this spoof help wanted advertisement describes the Castorena family crime syndicate, which specializes in forging identity documents so sophisticated that trained law enforcement officers can't spot them.

This billion-dollar business has infiltrated major cities across the nation, including Denver, Los Angeles, Boston, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, San Antonio, Detroit, and others. In Denver alone, ICE officials seized 20 sophisticated document forgery labs.

The organization is alleged to be involved in the manufacture and distribution of high-quality counterfeit identity documents, including social security cards, birth certificates, marriage certificates, US and Mexican driver licenses, Matricula Consular ID cards, resident alien cards, work authorization documents, proof of vehicle insurance cards, temporary vehicle registration documents, and utility bills (many states require driver license applicants to show utility bills as proof of residence).

According to the Rocky Mountain News, one of this crime family's highest ranking members was caught in Glendale, near Denver. He pled guilty to a number of crimes related to document forging, including identity theft and has been sentenced to over 11 years in prison.

The Denver Post has reported on several cases of Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles employees in Glenwood Springs, Aurora, and in Weld county creating and selling driver licenses to those who had no identification, those with questionable identification, and those whose licenses had been revoked.

Jeff Copp, head of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Denver, said that before undocumented immigrants try to get driver's licenses - the most sought-after form of identification - they often will build up 'portfolios' of fake documents. Those include birth certificates, Social Security cards, green cards, worker permits and visas. 'They'll seek any document they can find to exploit so they can get another document,' Copp said. Frequently, immigrants will use these documents to try to get a legitimate driver's license, he said. Copp said there are entire organized crime networks that specialize in creating these so- called underlying documents.

The document forgery industry would, however, dry up overnight were it not for corrupt American employers eager to hire illegal aliens at near-slave wage levels. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Denver arrested 38 illegal aliens at one IFCO site, located at 5699 Dexter Street in Commerce City, Colorado. IFCO is the largest pallet services company in the United States, and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

A federal prosecutor told the Denver Post that U.S. ICE agents arrested seven current and former company managers on charges they conspired to transport, harbor and encourage illegal workers to live in the United States for commercial advantage and private financial gain.

According to a government affidavit filed in the Northern District of New York, the investigation began in February 2005 when ICE agents received information that IFCO workers in Guilderland, New York, were witnessed ripping up their W-2 tax forms and that an IFCO assistant general manager had explained that the workers were illegal aliens, had fake Social Security cards and did not intend to file tax returns.

According to the affidavit, subsequent investigation indicated that IFCO officials transported illegal aliens to and from work; paid rent for the housing of illegal immigrant employees; and deducted money from their monthly paychecks to cover these expenses. Former IFCO employees also said it was common practice for IFCO to hire workers who lacked social security cards or produced bogus identification cards.

The affidavit also alleges that IFCO officials knowingly hired an illegal alien who was an informant for ICE. In numerous recorded conversations, IFCO officials reimbursed the informant for obtaining fraudulent identity documents for other illegal alien employees; used the person to recruit other illegal workers; and advised the person and other illegal alien employees on how to avoid law enforcement detection, the affidavit alleges.

"Employers and workers alike should be on notice that the status quo has changed," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. "These enforcement actions demonstrate that this department has no patience for employers who tolerate or perpetuate a shadow economy. We intend to find employers who knowingly or recklessly hire unauthorized workers and we will use every authority within our power to shut down businesses that exploit an illegal workforce to turn a profit."

IFCO apparently turned that profit into a competetive advantage over other firms to achieve its status as the largest pallet services company in the United States.

When Houston-based IFCO Systems North America Inc. reported record profits last year, others in the unglamorous business of recycling wooden pallets couldn't help but wonder how the company did it.

"We were all very curious about this," said Chaille Brindley, assistant publisher of the trade magazine Pallet Enterprise. "They were able to do things that other companies just couldn't do."

Federal investigators think a significant portion of those profits came on the backs of illegal immigrant workers recruited in Houston and bused to at least 26 plants across the country, where they reassembled worn pallets for substandard wages.

And the company may have been able to keep prices low by paying low wages.

"Pallet recycling normally requires a lot of physical labor ... but you can earn a fair living doing that," Brindley said.

With 53 plants across the country, the nation's largest supplier of recycled pallets has the infrastructure to handle large volumes for its major clients, such as Target, Kmart, Office Depot, Tyson, Rite-Aid and The Home Depot.

The company has stated that pallet recycling last year "contributed overproportionally" to its gross profit of $116.2 million — a nearly 40 percent increase over 2004. In all, the company raked in more than half a billion dollars in revenue.

A former IFCO worker netted in the recent raids explained to a Fox News team that he didn't intend to do anything wrong.

"When people on the job, they sold it to him the papers, they say yes it's correct, it's good. You can go to work, this was awhile back," he remembered.

Over half of the Social Security numbers used by this company's employees were bogus and the federal government notifies employers who submit more than 100 bogus social security numbers a year. However, neither the Social Security administration nor the IRS will disclose even the name of the offending employers, much less the identities of individual illicit workers to ICE. Meanwhile, Social Security withholding is routinely transfered to the Earnings Suspense File, which is where the Social Security Administration puts W-2 reports when the name on the W-2 does not match the Social Security number. According to the Government Accounting Office (GAO), the ESF is growing by about 9 million W-2s a year.

The Social Security Administration's inspector general also prepares an annual list of "top 100" employers who had filed the highest percentages of bogus W-2s, but only by state. The report does not identify the employers, but page 22 of the report lists the top 100 by state. In Colorado, for instance, which is #4 on the list, a single employer generated over $65 million in suspended W-2 earnings representing over 15, 000 workers. Page 5 of the Federal Trade Commission report on identity theft shows that Colorado is also in the top 5 states for identity fraud and theft. A national map of identity theft statistics (page 6 of the same report) shows a high correlation between states with large numbers of illegal alien workers.

Illegal Aliens and Their Employers: Living Outside the Law

Imagine you're a citizen of another nation and decide you would rather live and work in the United States. You talk to those around you who have tried going north and learn that those who want to legally enter and work in the United States must meet several criteria. You realize right away that you don't have the money to apply for a visa or to pay for the bus fare north even if you had a visa. The application forms are in English, but you aren't even literate in your own language, Spanish. You don't know anyone in the United States who would be willing and able to sponsor you to financially guarantee your support and health care. No employer from up north has applied on your behalf for a worker visa. You aren't sure whether or not you could pass the medical exam. And you know they will run a criminal background check, which you won't pass unless you pay the mordida to every level of law enforcement you encounter on your way, each anxious to get their share of the bribe for a clean record.

You may have watched television programs that idealize the immigrant experience. You're tired of working for an honest wage that barely keeps food on the table. You see the comparatively glamorous life of the Norteamericanos and decide that's the life for you. You don't consider that the cumbersome, costly process provides a great deal of protection to you when you do finally receive your visa to come north. You think only of what a great life you'll have in the north and try not to dwell on the risks of living outside the law.

Therefore, you ignore the laws of the United States and come anyway uninvited. Never do you consider that our nation would extend its world-renowned hospitality and protection to you if they knew you were coming. As a result, you tumble into a hellish world where everyone along the way rushes to pick the last bit of flesh from your bones--precisely because they know that nobody will come to your rescue.

A number of people are all too eager to exploit you along the way. Corrupt law enforcement and military personnel extort money from you in a sort of game that's like running a taxi meter. They beat you until you produce the amount of money they demand. If you are slow or worse, poor, they may beat you to death. If you're female, they also violate you. If you are an attractive female, your tormentors may kidnap and sell you into white slavery or prostitution. You want a guide and a ride north, which brings you and any family members you've foolishly brought with you into close company with armed revolutionaries, drug smugglers, white slave traders, and other unsavory types. Meanwhile, others who applied for and received a visa enjoy a relatively unremarkable bus ride north, proudly hand their papers to be inspected at the border, and continue their journey to a better life.

Unfortunately, you have chosen to live outside the law and will endure the most dehumanizing experiences imaginable. You were a humble, honest citizen of your country but find that you are compelled to look the other way as women and young girls are raped, old ones robbed, and the weak and sick left to die in the desert. If you were too poor to pay your coyote in cash, you have carried methamphetamine, marijuana or narcotics in your backpack. The coyote charges several thousand dollars in cash per person, which represents several years of wages for you if you are from a rural area of your country. So you reluctantly accept a backpack bulging with methamphetamine and in addition, you give the coyote whatever money you have left as payment for transporting you north. At the border, you drop the backpack on the ground. By now, you have no personal belongings worth carrying.

By the time you reach the border, you're accustomed to the companionship of your home country's criminals, doing business with criminals, with basic survival, and you know where to find those who will help you violate this country's laws to get what you want. You know that you must present a Social Security card to get a job, and conveniently your coyote has already told you who to ask for once you're on the north side of the border. Your coyote has several lines of business, you realize, in addition to human trafficking and drug smuggling. He learned long ago that his customers arrive at the border starved and desperate for work, so he sends his customers to the den of identity thieves eager to accept illegal drugs in payment for their services. The coyote knows his drug cargo will arrive safely because his customer must have forged identity documents to survive. The identity thieves and forgers send the coyote trade items--pseudoephedrine tablets and guns--the currency of traffickers in humans and illegal drugs. Maybe you spend some time trapped in this cycle because your cut of the toxic cargo you carry is so small you must make many successful trips under the watchful eye of your drug lord masters to repay your "debt." While you're in the border zone, you forage the community for items you can steal and pawn or exchange for food, clothing, money, and whatever else you think you need to survive. You quickly learn to scavenge garbage for identity information and don't need to be literate to know what to look for. You've been given examples to use to compare with documents you find in the trash. You must find a good haul because the price of your documents is a staggering cash price--or several sets of stolen identity documents. You want to arrive at your destination healthy enough to blend into the workforce, so you must steal enough to eat well and to obtain a complete change of clothes, hygiene supplies, and foot gear so you don't look as though you just staggered over the border through the brush.

It's no accident that identity theft, fraud, document forgeries, violent crime and methamphetamine trafficking run rampant in the very cities, counties and states with the highest rates of illegal aliens. Your forged Social Security card contains a number that was either blatantly invented or obtained from a child and thus will be a legitimate number that won't be used by anyone else in the workforce for a number of years. Or it was blatantly stolen from someone's paystub, tax record or health care document rummaged from their curbside garbage and sold to document forgers. You generated demand for this kind of crime and have participated in the theft of another person's identity, but you don't care. You think only of pursuing your dream to live in the United States and a better life than you had in your native country. You helped smuggle methamphetamine and other drugs into this country but shook off the guilt because you had a great need and were desperate. You looked the other way when savage people brutalized innocent women and girls because you knew they would shoot you on the spot if you disrupted their hellish sport.

By now, you are so accustomed to living outside the law that you accept the resulting hardships as part of an ordinary day of your life. You've found work with an unscrupulous employer who pays you cash under the table to avoid income and payroll taxes. This same employer doesn't include you in his count of workers to insure for Worker's Compensation, so if you get hurt on the job, you're down the road. You also may discover the hard way that you are invisible to the unemployment insurance system in case you're fired or laid off. Your corrupt employer also doesn't bother offering you health insurance benefits and probably doesn't carry health insurance for his American workers, either. Since he pays you cash, he doesn't feel obligated to pay you at least minimum wage. You grind along for less than the legal minimum wage or the lowest wage that your illegal predecessor would accept. When you ask for a raise, your employer tells you about welfare.

So you ask around and take a trip downtown to apply for subsidized housing, Medicaid, and food stamps. They speak Spanish and all the applications are in Spanish. Best of all, they help you fill everything out if you can't read or write. The only snag is that you discover that you can't get a subsidized apartment as quickly as a single man, so you quickly find someone willing to pose as your wife. You hope to eventually find a gullible American women willing to marry you so you can get on a faster track to citizenship.

As you apply through the help of an interpreter at the county human services department, nobody asks you for proof of citizenship, so you continue working for your unscrupulous employer, move into your subsidized apartment, shop for groceries using your food stamps, and get the first physical you've ever had in your life courtesy of Medicaid. Since you're paid under the table and therefore pay no taxes, all of these benefits are free with absolutely no cost to you.

You're doing so well in fact that you later suggest to the woman posing as your wife that she get pregnant as quickly as possible so you can use the child to guarantee that the public assistance keeps coming even if the paychecks do not.

A few blocks away, a native-born American has been told he's to be laid off soon and visits the same human resources department for assistance. His family needs affordable housing, but the waiting list is long. You don't know that as a homeless illegal alien, you went right to the top of the emergency housing list. Meanwhile, because the American already had a place to live, albeit one that he could scarcely afford, he was told to wait in line. Nobody helped him, a functional illiterate, complete the application and he couldn't do the calculations well enough to know to check the box indicating that he spends at least 50% of his monthly income on housing. The staff was too busy scrambling for an interpreter for the illegal alien.

The same native-born American works across town for a company in the same line of business as the one that employs and exploits illegal aliens. The American works for a business that judiciously examines the identity documents of applicants and even screens the Social Security numbers to see if they match the name of the person presenting them. He also tells each applicant that he's stepping into the other room to verify the Social Security number given--applicants who know their card is a forgery rush out of the building and thus are never hired. He requires proof of current, valid automobile insurance as a condition of employment. His company pays him a meager, but legal wage. Unfortunately, his employer can't continue to compete with the company across town because he can never bid low enough on legal labor to beat the guy who hires illegals. So the native-born American, along with the other entry-level workers at the company, have been notified that they will be laid off by the end of the month.

You drive to work the day after the American citizen is laid off. You've been in the country long enough to acquire a forged Social Security card and forged or stolen driver license. You don't bother carrying automobile insurance because the moment a law enforcement officer asks to see proof of insurance and registration, he'll also ask to see your forged driver license. You'll be at risk for deportation not for illegal entry into the country, but for possession of several forged documents. You drive an old beat-up vehicle unless you can buy into a used or new vehicle with someone who has a green card but not enough money to make the payments on his own. Then your green card friend wants a share for automobile insurance, but you never buy it for your own beater. You already know that you must present a valid driver license to obtain automobile insurance and fear that by so doing your fraudulent license will be recognized and reported to law enforcement, which will probably deport you.

You keep your job, you who have possibly participated in drug smuggling to pay your "fare" north, contributed and possibly participated in the identity theft epidemic, committed identity fraud each time you've applied for work with forged documents, committed identity fraud and theft each time you've obtained social service or public assistance benefits, have committed identity fraud by driving with a stolen or forged license, habitually drive without insurance to avoid the detection of your fraudulent license, perhaps have stolen or obtained forged registration and proof of insurance good enough to pass with law enforcement, have perhaps committed or helped another commit bigamy to get better public assistance benefits and eventually extort citizenship, have perhaps produced children that you will enroll in welfare and in public schools at public expense, and you give nothing to this country in return but cheap labor that this country's legal taxpayers subsidize and puts this nation's legitimate workers out of a job.

Our nation's local, state and federal government also looks the other way at the invasion of illegal aliens for fear of appearing racist and thus alienating the voters.

As a voter, I demand that my government at all levels act now to deter and prevent illegal entry into our country and to aggressively prosecute anyone involved in human trafficking as well as the criminal acts that are spawned relative to this nefarious industry.

Legislation that makes illegal entry into this country a felony looks to me like a plea bargain, considering the many crimes that likely preceded it.

Legislation that does not address corrupt businesses who exploit unauthorized workers is ineffective and incomplete legislation.

Readers who haven't noticed that my last name is Hispanic may want to contemplate how they'd feel if they were lumped into a group of people that are stereotypically known for living a life of crime. Legislators don't understand that honorable Hispanics whose families have been in this country for centuries are tired of being confused with law-breaking late-comers. Decent Hispanic families are tired of people asking when they came to the United States. We're tired of mindless comments about how well we speak unaccented English. We're tired of people griping that they have to know Spanish to get a city, county, state or federal job. We're tired of illegals who have evidently already committed a number of crimes to get here burdening the rest of us with the public expense of paying for their welfare, public housing, education, incarceration, and medical care. It's taken decades to prove to the Anglo majority that Hispanics are upstanding citizens and an asset to the country. Illegals inflame old prejudices by validating the old stereotypes.

We're also aware that illegals are competing with our American sons and daughters for entry-level jobs. Our children aren't lazy. They are smart enough to realize that they can work in air-conditioned comfort in some places rather than for the same low wage outside in the heat. In our family, our eldest son's first job was in a local fruit-packing shed. Many of his fellow employees were Anglos. My husband started working in the fields and orchards at age 8 to help meet the needs of his large family. Neither of his parents had more than a grade school education, but all of their children completed junior high school and most of their children graduated high school. My husband picked fruit to earn money for school clothes. He graduated high school with his class as a member of the National Honor Society. He's never received any kind of welfare. His ancestors have been in this country for centuries, longer than Mexico has even been a nation. His parents and family aren't Mexican-Americans. None of them were born in Mexico and those who have been there were there on vacation. They're Americans. They don't fly the Mexican flag and only the older people speak Spanish. Many of them are veterans of the United States armed forces; some in service during times of war.

On the other hand, illegals are now demanding citizenship and the right to vote. Every one of them is guilty of at least one crime and likely has committed several. Citizenship means the willingness to renounce former allegiance, but illegals continue to send money back home. United States citizenship means a willingness to obey the laws of the land. It means to swear allegiance to our flag and no other, and to sing only our national anthem in the language of this nation--English. It means to qualify for the right to be identified as a United States citizen on all documents that demonstrate authorization to vote and work in this country, and to be protected by this country against threats while at home or abroad, and to enlist in the armed forces. Illegals by law cannot enlist in our nation's armed forces, primarily because they are of unproven allegiance.

It makes little sense to simply label illegal entrants as either citizens or felons because in reality, these people have typically committed or participated in a multitude of crimes on their way to the front door of unscrupulous employers eager to exploit them. They have openly shown they have no allegiance or loyalty to this country and have committed a multitude of acts that prove their unsuitability for citizenship. Their first act on illegally crossing was to demonstrate their unwillingness to be subject to our laws.

It makes more sense to turn off the magnet attracting these people by severely punishing those who hire illegals and create the incentive for illegals to start their hellish voyage north. It makes sense to publicize the interconnections between cheap labor, the underground economy, explosion in social service expenses for illegal entrants, skyrocketing healthcare costs borne by taxpayers to subsidize medical care provided to illegal entrants, criminal justice costs of prosecuting and incarcerating illegal entrants, off-shoring of American jobs, erosion of American wages, human trafficking, and the methamphetamine crisis.

My husband's third-great-grandfather was a Civil War Veteran, Union allegiance. Most of that conflict was over states' rights, but a great deal of it tested the resolve of people who thought that this nation could not survive without cheap labor provided by slaves.

This nation cannot survive its addiction to cheap labor provided by illegal aliens. Businesses who hire cheap labor provide the primary incentive for illegal aliens to enter our country. Unscrupulous employers run legitimate companies out of business. By validating the allure of work in the United States, these corrupt employers fuel human trafficking, create a demand for stolen and forged documents, coerce illegal entrants into participating in drug trafficking and identity fraud, pay less than their share in local, federal and state taxes, and cynically shift the burden of providing food, housing, education and healthcare of underpaid, under-the-table illegal workers to the public.

Hiring unauthorized, undocumented, illegal workers generates crime, perpetuates racism, and should be aggressively punished. Such unscrupulous businesses enjoy an unfair competitive advantage over law-abiding companies and should be fined rather than allowed to retain their unjustly obtained profits. They typically pay their illegal workers cash under the table to avoid paying a lawful wage or payroll taxes and at the same time deprive the workers of access to medical insurance coverage, unemployment, Workers Compensation, Social Security and other benefits they might otherwise be able to rightfully claim in the event of layoff, workplace injury or their retirement. Similarly, corrupt businesses don't offer their under-the-table employees these benefits because they would have to include legitimate identification information to enroll them and justify claiming them as a business expense. These businesses moreover shift an undue share of their cost of business to taxpayers, who subsidize healthcare, criminal justice and incarceration, education, housing and public assistance for the workers they exploit.

For the safety and security of this nation and for the protection of unauthorized entrants who are readily victimized by corrupt government officials along the way and exploited by criminal networks and predatory employers, we must aggressively punish corrupt employers, end illegal entry into this country, enforce existing border controls, and invest in improved interception of illicit border crossers.

We must also somehow educate those desiring entry into our country that those who refuse to subject themselves to our laws to legally and safely cross our border will put themselves in great danger and become subject to the criminal fiends who thrive outside the law.